by Roz Southey
“I waited till he’d gone,” he said reluctantly. “Then I went back to Mrs Hill’s again.”
“With the Vivaldi,” I said with resignation, remembering the music clasped in the dead boy’s hand.
“It’s much better than the Corelli,” the boy burst out.
“Never mind that,” I said, hurrying on. “How far did you get this time, George?”
“The Bigg Market, sir. That’s where the lady picked me up in her carriage.”
My heart grew heavy. “Go on.”
“She said she was looking for me. She said she wanted me to do something for her again.”
“Again?”
“I thought she wanted me to take the violin again,” he said in a small voice.
“Le Sac’s violin!” I said. “You sneaked into his rooms while he was ill and took it.”
“He never stirred,” the spirit said proudly. “Fast asleep he was and snoring. And I knew where he kept it – under the floorboards.”
“That’s why you were so afraid of Le Sac. You kept thinking he’d find out you’d stolen the violin.”
“He deserved it,” George said viciously. “I hated him.”
I shifted the branch of candles and sat down on the edge of the table. “I wonder you wanted to help the lady again, since you were so afraid of the consequences the first time. What did she ask you to do?”
George was a thin pool of light on a chair. “She said Mr Ord and Mr Jenison had stopped the duel this time but she was determined it should go ahead because she wanted to teach Mr Sac a lesson. She said he was arrogant and designing and – and she regretted the day she ever saw him. And she asked me to play the Vivaldi to her – she said she’d give me two guineas. Two guineas, master. Only – only –” His voice shook.
I said gently, “What happened, George?”
He seemed to sniff. “She brought me here, sir, to this house, and took me into a big big room, with a harpsichord in it. And she asked me to play.” Another sniff. “I just turned away to get my violin out. And then there was such a pain …” He was crying now. “Such a pain, master, in my throat, and everything was wet and hot. And – and she said, –˜Fly away, boy. You’re one spirit who will never be found’.”
“In this house?” I repeated.
“Well, I knew the house when we got out of her carriage, sir. But when I got in the big room, I felt a bit funny. And when I looked out of the window, when I was getting my violin, I couldn’t seem to see the square – just a street with lots of houses instead.” The pool of light flickered; he whimpered, “I don’t know what happened, sir!”
I was remembering the drunk spirit in the square who never knew where he was, who had insisted I was organist of St Nicholas. I ran my fingers over the title page of the book. Here was the explanation of that puzzle; the drunk spirit had been cast out of this mysterious place into my real world. Might not, then, a spirit from the real world – George – be cast into this place?
And, as George’s story seemed to suggest, could the lady come and go between the two places as she pleased? She had certainly used the uncanny connection between them to exile George’s spirit and so cover up her crime.
I turned, hearing a noise at the bedroom door. She stood there, smiling in the flickering light of the shadows.
“Alas, Mr Patterson,” she said. “You really should have kept out of this affair. You really should.”
I saw the candle-light glint on the metal hidden in the folds of her skirt.
“Good evening, Lady Anne,” I said.
36
SONG FOR SOLO SOPRANO
She regarded me with amusement. “Confess, sir, did you suspect me before this moment?”
I sighed. “Indeed not, my lady, though I suspected everyone else in turn. Now, of course, I cannot conceive why I omitted you.”
How strange, I thought, to be talking in so light-hearted a fashion to a murderess. And she, without a trace of fear, set her head on one side as if curious to hear me out.
“You killed George,” I went on, “who trusted you because you had paid him to steal the violin. Then you killed Le Sac, making it look as if he had killed the boy and had done away with himself from remorse. Le Sac of course was your real target.”
She inclined her head in acknowledgement.
“But is it not rather an excessive way to be rid of a protégé Why not merely tell him you refuse to fund him further?”
The flickering candlelight showed a swift spray of emotions across her face. I calculated the distance between us, confident that I could take the knife from her. Once I had heard her explanations.
She laughed softly. “It is not so easy to be rid of a blackmailer.”
“A love affair?” I suggested, although I had never imagined Lady Anne susceptible to the softer passions. “An irregularity with money?”
She threw back her head and laughed uproariously. I heard George’s spirit whimper in fear. “Mr Patterson, do you not wonder where you are?”
“There have been times I have thought of little else,” I confessed. “And of the people in this place. There is a man, particularly, stocky, red-faced –”
“My father.”
“I thought him dead, long ago.”
She nodded. “In your world, yes. But not in this. Not in my world.”
I could hear a clock ticking faintly in the bedroom. One of the candles in the branch on the table flared; smoke and a spark drifted from it. The shadows licked at her. I am not a superstitious man, and have only a conventional amount of religion in me, but in that moment I fancied her a devil.
She advanced, and I contemplated putting an end to all this. I was barefoot and wore only a dressing robe but nevertheless… She smiled and shook her head.
“Do not do anything foolish, Mr Patterson. I can come and go as I please. I could kill you and go straight back to your world. It would not trouble me if I never came back here.” Did I detect a note of falsity in that statement? No matter, she was continuing. “And once I am back in your world, sir, I will go straight to Gateshead and finish the work I began this morning. In short, sir, if you value your friend the dancing master’s life, you will do as I say.”
I held her gaze but she did not drop her eyes in shame or confusion. It was clear she meant what she said. I retreated a step or two, putting the table between us, conscious that the wall and curtained window were at my back, preventing me from moving very far. An amused smile played about Lady Anne’s lips.
“You have abandoned your pistols, I see,” I remarked as coolly as I could. “Too noisy, I suppose. One of them was Le Sac’s, was it not? Stolen from him when you killed him.”
She ignored my words. “You need not be afraid yet, Mr Patterson. I do not intend to kill you in this house. You seem to have an ability to step through between worlds and your spirit might exhibit the same trait. I do not want you to escape into your own world and betray me there.”
“Your world, my world?” I said. “I know which is mine. Do you tell me that you originate in this place? That you are not Mrs Jerdoun’s cousin?”
She gestured with her hands. “Imagine, sir, a book. Like this music book.” She indicated the book I had left open upon the table. “A book has many separate leaves of paper, all stacked neatly one upon another. Imagine that the whole of creation is like this book. Each page is a separate world, each entire unto itself – lying very close to its neighbours, yet with no communication between them. In each of these worlds live sets of people going about their daily concerns with no knowledge of the people in the other worlds, or any contact with them. Yet many have their counterparts in those other worlds. A man like yourself, Mr Patterson, may exist on two worlds, or perhaps more. Or, rather, two men with your name and your characteristics may so exist. Similar, yet different. Two versions of the same man.”
She dropped her hands and the knife flashed in the candlelight. Her expression was again one of amusement. “You are a great deal more successful in thi
s world, Mr Patterson. A well-respected concert promoter, a composer much admired even at so young an age, in possession not merely of one organist’s post but two, and with dozens of rich pupils pleading for your attention. Oh, certainly you must work hard, but you are recognised as above the average run of musicians, and the patronising speeches of men like my father are tempered by respect.”
She leaned forward, her brown hair slipping across her shoulder. “Would you not wish to change places with your other self, Mr Patterson? It would not really be like stepping into another man’s shoes. And who knows, he might prefer the anonymity of being merely competent and scraping a living.”
I was stung by her assessment of me, although I could hardly deny it. But I was more concerned with the implications of what she had said.
“Is that what you did?” I asked. “Changed places with your other self in my world?”
She shrugged. “She died young, aged fourteen, an orphan in the care of an aunt and uncle in Norfolk. When I first stepped through to your world I had some considerable work to cover my tracks, to hide the fact that my other self had died. But once I had succeeded in that, I had few difficulties. I inherited her father’s money and became a rich heiress. I confess, however, that I was unnerved to discover I had a cousin. Esther does not exist in this world.”
She idly turned the printed pages of the music book. I considered disarming her now but the distance between us was too great, and I knew that if she escaped she would do as she threatened and step through to my world to kill Demsey. For all I knew she might be able to step through in a moment; perhaps she would one second be standing in front of me, the next be a fading shadow. I could not risk that. I would disarm her only when I could be certain of success. If I could distract her…
“That manuscript book I lent you,” she mused. “I had it from the original author, of course, to practise a harpsichord lesson from it. It is easy enough to take material objects between the worlds.”
“How – how do you step through to my world?”
She stared musingly at the rich hangings over the window. “I really do not know, sir. It is a gift I have always had. As a child I used to visit strange worlds in my play, or use them to hide from my father.” She smiled. “My governesses always used to remark on my remarkable imagination. I only came to realise that the worlds were real many years later. And there is something about this house.” She glanced about her as if seeking something. “It is as if the pages of the book have been stuck together, here, and certain people may step through from one page to another at will. I am not the only person with the ability. Others possess it – the spirit in the garden, for instance, and yourself.” She smiled. “Why not ask how you do it, sir?”
“I do nothing,” I said. “It happens or it does not. A chill, a giddiness and the world shifts like a curtain blowing, then all is still and I am in a different place. I cannot do it at will.”
She shrugged. “That skill would no doubt grow.”
I did not want it. “And you live two lives? Are you not missed in this world?”
“I am a semi-invalid, sir, so ill that I must keep to my bed all day. I cannot even bear to have a maid with me; such creatures fuss so, you know. I put in an appearance occasionally at the dinner table. My father has lost all patience with me and constantly reminds me how one day my distant cousins in Norfolk will inherit the house and throw me out of it. It is all entailed to a male heir, of course.”
“And what will you do then?”
“I will thankfully retreat to your world and abandon my prior self altogether,” she said mockingly. “I would do so now, except that this world has its uses.”
“You prefer my world? Why?”
“My dear Patterson! In your world I am an independent heiress with no man to tell me what to do or say. Here I am merely a daughter, suffered to have a small allowance and constantly nagged to marry this man or that, who in his turn will tell me where to go and what to do. Which would you prefer?”
I pondered on the matter – not on her reasons, which could not be denied, but on her actions. The curtains were heavy, soft velvet at my back; with my hand behind me I tugged surreptitiously on them, to see how easy they might be to pull down. The curtain rail, unfortunately, seemed good solid oak.
“And Le Sac?”
“Alas, poor Henri. The contact between the worlds cannot be entirely controlled; occasionally the passage opens up of its own accord. Henri was with me on one of those occasions. I involuntarily stepped through, and he came with me. I flatter myself that no one could have reacted more swiftly – I knocked him unconscious, I may say – but unfortunately he did not accept my explanation that he had stumbled and fallen and dreamt the rest.”
“You should have killed him then,” I said dryly. “It would have saved you a great deal of trouble.”
“I was younger,” she sighed, “and naively over-confident. I had lived by my wits for ten years or more and believed myself to be able to carry off anything, certainly able to fool any mere man.”
“But surely he could not blackmail you over this? Who would believe him?”
“No one,” she agreed. “But Henri was always very quick to see the implications of any situation. If I was from this world, I could not be the real Lady Anne from his world. He even travelled to the village in Norfolk where my counterpart had lived, to look at the church registers. He found proof of her death. And if she was dead, sir, all the wealth that I had inherited in her stead should have gone to someone else.” She smiled, with real malice. “In that world, your world, there are no male heirs living, only one female.”
“Esther Jerdoun,” I said.
“Indeed. Henri had all the evidence he needed to prove I was an impostor.” She looked almost admiring as she spoke of Le Sac. “He did not need to prove my origins or explain about a world no one would believe in. He simply needed to threaten to tell Esther that I was not her cousin.” She sighed again. “I am afraid I underestimated dear Henri. As, alas, I have underestimated you.”
I leaned against the wall, a handful of curtain in one hand behind my back. If I could tempt her across to me, perhaps I could tangle her in it. “I suppose it will not do if I promise to keep your secret?”
“No, it will not,” she agreed, raising the knife. “You would never let the boy’s murderer go free.”
“Nor Le Sac’s,” I said. “And you were nearly the murderer of Demsey.”
“I was aiming for you,” she said. “I was always a poor shot. Though, to do myself justice, you escaped the first shot by chance, before he knocked you aside. Mr Patterson, I must ask you to go back into the bedroom and dress.”
“Dress?” I echoed incredulously. Certainly, I would feel more at ease with my clothes on, but I could not understand why she insisted upon it. “In heaven’s name, why?”
“I explained before,” she said impatiently. “I cannot kill you here for fear your spirit will escape to your own world. So I must take you elsewhere. And if I am to walk through the streets with you, you will draw considerable attention bare-footed and in a dressing robe.”
Reluctantly, I moved past her into the bedroom. The clothes the servant had laid out for me lay like a dark stain upon the white counterpane. I turned my back on her and began to dress. I could not endanger Hugh, yet I would not go quietly to my own death. I turned back as I buttoned my waistcoat.
“George,” I said, “pray go downstairs and tell someone what is going on.”
His voice came from the table at the head of the bed. “But they don’t listen, master.”
Lady Anne laughed. “There are few spirits in this world, Mr Patterson. The dead go straight to whatever realm they inhabit and do not linger in the place of their death. Those few that for some reason do remain – or that we imagine remain – we call ghosts and are afraid of them. We certainly do not enjoy a chat with them.”
“Go down, George,” I said again.
“But they won’t hear!”
“Go down!” I roared, and I caught a glimpse of his hurried going, upon the bedpost, upon the door handle. Lady Anne, smiling, gestured towards the wall. “We will go this way, sir, by the servants’ stair. There is, I am afraid, no escape.”
37
MARCH
The servants’ stairs were pokey and dark; my candle lit only a step or two and the peeling paint on the walls. Muffled voices echoed distantly; male laughter, a shout, sharp words. I thought of snuffing out the candle and running while Lady Anne was disadvantaged by the darkness, but in a house I did not know I could only fall or lose my way. And that threat to Hugh, always that threat…
At last the dim candlelight showed me a door. “Open it,” Lady Anne commanded. I did as she bid; outside, the night air was cold; the moon glimmered fitfully on the cobbles of a back lane.
She reached over my shoulder and plucked the candle from my grasp, setting it upon a small table just inside the door. She pinched the flame, and smoke drifted upwards.
“Go out, Mr Patterson.”
I stood my ground. The further I went from this house the greater the danger. I was conscious, too, that I was leaving the only friend I had in this world, since George could not leave the place of his death. But Lady Anne slipped her arm through mine and I felt the prick of the knife below my ribs as she turned a laughing face to me.
“This way, sir. And smile for me. We are a loving couple out for a late stroll.”
She pulled me on, laughing for the benefit of the two men who lounged at the street corner, dressed in the rough clothes of miners. As we came up to them, they pushed themselves from the wall and I braced myself for a fight. But to my astonishment, they took one look at Lady Anne, halted in mid-movement and drew back, saluting her respectfully.
She did not speak until we were out of earshot of the men. “I told you, sir, that this world has its uses. Have you ever broken the law, Mr Patterson?”
“Never,” I declared. Then, because honesty impelled me, I added, “Leaving aside a few pranks when I was a boy.”
